MANHATTAN
NEXT
photos (From top): Ó & Ô LucasFiLm Ltd; digitaLgLobe/scapeWare3d/getty images (tWo);
rebecca haLe, Ngm staFF. art: ÁLvaro vaLiÑo
A Question
of Taste
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2004
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2013
Sand Story tatooine—where Luke skywalker grew
up and his father, anakin, pod raced in the Star Wars movies—is being
swallowed by the tunisian desert. a 300-foot-wide, crescent-shaped
sand dune called a barchan (above) is bearing down on the set of
1999’s The Phantom Menace (top). most of the original Star Wars
tatooine set was already engulfed by the early 2000s.
those who would preserve the fictional planet are short on time.
geologically speaking, only lava flows and mudslides move faster
than sand, says the team of planetary scientists studying the dune’s
activity. this particular barchan has been slowed just slightly by
airflow around the set’s buildings and the estimated 100,000 tourists
annually tromping through. it’s marching forward about 45 feet a year,
says Johns hopkins university’s ralph Lorenz. he expects the Menace
set to be fully covered in five years. Fans aren’t completely powerless,
though: tourist photos can let researchers track exactly when the site
gets overrun and whether it is unearthed again.
—Johnna Rizzo
elephant calls can be heard over a
range of a hundred square miles.
Where would dessert
tables be without vanil-
la? It’s a key ingredient
in countless confections
and is the number one
ice-cream choice in
America, according to
the International Dairy
Foods Association.
Vanilla’s essence lies
in a chemical called
vanillin—the dominant
flavor compound among
hundreds found in the
vanilla bean (below).
Frequently, though,
vanillin has nothing to
do with the bean. Notes
vanilla historian Tim
Ecott, most store-bought
sweets are flavored with
a synthetic version de-
rived from other plants,
wood, or even coal tar.
Chefs prefer natural
extracts, says Ecott,
but people don’t seem
to care. “Using vanillin
from other sources
isn’t fraud exactly,” he
adds, “but it is a bit of
smoke and mirrors.”
— Catherine Zuckerman